Beijing: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous and Most Things in Between!

The Forbidden Palace

I am writing this whilst lying on the top bunk of three on a Chinese sleeper train, listing to the animal like sounds of the young and old coughing up phlegm whilst an odour of coal fires, cigarette smoke and shit has engulfed the carriage… it is safe to say Beijing has been an experience.  To portray the city in such a negative light however would be a disservice to an incredibly diverse city that manages to mix modern technology alongside ancient temples, rampant capitalism with communist power and smiling faces next to stern soldiers.  Arriving the day after the highest air pollution warning in the history of the city we prepared with n95 face masks and trepidation.  No positive spin can describe how disgusting the air quality was during our stay.  Hazy brown skies in the morning were replaced in the early afternoon with visibility of less than 150 metres and what started as a joke wearing our masks soon became a necessity as both of us were needing to use an inhaler to control our coughing.  Criticising a nation too harshly for creating the same environment we had a hundred years ago in London seems hypocritical but to look at other nations and the difference in the standard of living must anger the local population.  Still, during our four days in Beijing we saw some amazing temples, cycled around the chaotic back streets, ate Peking duck and saw a wonder of the world… I have had worse city breaks!

Walking around Beijing I can imagine what it must feel like to be a minority ethnic group in Britain, with people often looking at you just a little longer than they might otherwise.  Thankfully for us these looks held no animosity, rather just a curiosity of somebody different among the 23 million inhabitants of the city.  Arriving in Tiananmen Square, the scene of horrendous blood shed that is highly censored in China (so much so google sites are banned in China due to their refusal to remove certain results from searching ‘Tiananmen Square’) we were greeted by a huge portrait of Chairman Mao.  As it turns out it is impossible to escape his face anywhere in China as it is emblazoned onto any tacky plastic item imaginable.  Arriving late we happened to see the lowering of the Chinese flag in the square where some impeccably coordinated soldiers marched out across the square to perform the ceremony.  The area was heavily policed with police scanning ID’s in the crowd and guards were each armed with a fire extinguisher in case of Buddhist monks attempting self-immolation.  As the blood red sun set through the shimmering pollution over the square we headed back to our hostel on the underground to plan the rest of our stay. After a long day of sightseeing we enjoyed our evening meal in a local restaurant whose menu included ‘Old Kitchen Cabbage’ and ‘Dancing Chicken’.  Despite the lunacy I was beginning to enjoy Beijing!

Tiananmen Square

We spent our first day exploring the Forbidden Palace in the centre of the city which was closed for centuries under the Ming Dynasty but opened up for the public in the twentieth century.  Reading the sign it turned out that anybody under 1.2m gained free entry to the site.  Looking out across the sea of people I felt this was probably just a way of making sure only foreigners had to pay to enter as the occasional blonde head poked out above the queue!  We spent hours exploring the maze of small courtyards and temples that make up the immense complex.  The wooden temples were surprisingly well preserved (although a little dirty from the pollution) and have small carved sculptures of dragons that ordain every roof and archway.  My highlight was gazing across Tiananmen Square from where Mao delivered numerous national addresses, gaining a sense of the power you must feel from addressing thousands of people in such a vast square. From here we braved some exercise in the city and breathing heavily through our masks we walked up the hill in the park behind the Palace to a small temple which offered views over the city (at least the small section visible through the now thick smog).  It gave us a great perspective on the size of the Forbidden Palace and the pollution problem that Beijing currently faces. 

It is impossible to escape the seemingly bizarre cultural differences and every day we laughed at the amazing translations, whacky behaviour and sheer chaos that unfolded before us during our stay.  The park provided some particular gems with a couple in their 70’s attempting to ballroom dance to some modern Chinese rap music and a women singing so passionately (and badly). We had to stop and watch just to gain a sense of perspective on the absurdity of the performances.  We then walked along Wangling Street to see the local markets.  It turns out there is nothing the Chinese will not grill on a stick.  Whole baby sharks, frogs, insects, scorpions and more were all on sale but although fascinating it was not one of my favourite differences between our cultures.  Desperate to enjoy Peking Duck in Beijing we had been recommended where to eat but entering the exclusive restaurant and being handed a tourist menu with prices double that of the locals we quickly left.  We ended up down a side street with a huge portion of duck and a beer with locals trying to show us how we should be making our amazing duck pancakes, a far more enjoyable experience!

As we were heading further south into the warm climates of South East Asia it was important that we posted our collection of weird souvenirs and giant coats home.  The hotels tour organiser, Jack helped us to organise this.  Insisting that business was slow in the morning he came to the post office with us to help translate, only for us to be turned away due to a fear that our polyester coats might have bird flu from a feather lining??!!!  Unperturbed we headed back to the hostel to get on push bikes for the ‘short’ journey to another post office branch.  Weaving in between motorised push bikes, dodging traffic that ignored traffic lights whilst trying to breathe through our face masks turned out to be great fun!  Although technically in a bike lane, any vehicle small enough travelled in it.  Everything from mobility scooters to one seater cars hurtled up and down it loaded with as much as they could carry.  We rode down small alleys filled with strange smells and sights whilst being gawped at by old men but it was interesting to see Beijing behind the huge high rises and modern shopping centres.  Having reached the post office we were finally able to send our parcel, although we gave up trying to describe the contents which by this point contained items ranging from animal bones to Communist propaganda.  We will find out how successful we were in three months when our package is due to reach Sheffield!

One of the 'vehicles' we had to dodge!

The Summer Palace

In the afternoon we explored the less visited but very interesting site of the Emperors Summer Palace just out of the city centre.  Set in enormous grounds a man-made lake was dug out and the earth used to make a hill, on top of which was a five story high wooden tower.  Huge corridors decorated with paintings of traditional Chinese stories connected the different buildings and when we were suitably frozen (now missing our winter coats) we set off back to the city in search of dinner.   We ended up in a hot pot restaurant where a coal chimney surrounded by boiling water was placed on our table for us to throw in food to cook.  After the waitress had shown us what to do (our water was now full of chillies and ginger) we decided against ordering ‘Jews Ears’ or ‘Pigs testicles’ and stuck to more traditional food.  Fishing for the food in the boiling water proved to be a challenge and with the waitresses laughing at my unconventional methods of retrieving my food, dinner proved to be a long affair.  My chop sticks skills require refining and by the end of dinner everything around me was covered in ‘local sauce’, if nothing else it had been an experience!

No trip to Beijing would be complete without visiting the Great Wall and we left early in the morning with our guides YoYo and Mr Ding.  Expecting Tinky Winky, LaLa and Po to appear at some point during the day we visited government run tea and jade companies as no guided tour in China is complete without some enforced shopping.  We were followed at every turn by our designated sales assistant who quickly grew despondent with our lack of interest (some jade statues were upwards of fifty thousand pounds!).  The highlight was of course the Great Wall although Hannah had not exactly sold it to me, describing it as ‘a wall on a hill’.  Although an accurate description I was very impressed with the Great Wall, despite only seeing a small section.   Even at 900 metres altitude and nearly 1.5 hours from the city the smog was initially thick but thankfully the wind came and by the end of our walk along the wall the sun was out and there were only a handful of other tourists!  It is deserving of its status as a Wonder of the World (we have now been to 4) just for its size but also for where and how it was constructed as it is built along sharp ridges. Looking out across the incredible mountain range from the watchtowers and seeing the wall winding across the summits was breath taking.  We headed back down into the smog to catch our sleeper train south towards Xi’an and I suppose we should not have been surprised to discover the conditions that awaited us on the train following the roller coaster ride that had been Beijing!